Relatively Strange (27 page)

This put the whole thing on a completely different plane, practically, said Glory sourly, on a different bloody airline. How could she not stick around a bit longer to see if there was anybody she could help. These kids, should any of them prove to have the odd extra ability, were unlike the others, able to be warned, capable of making choices as to whether or not they wanted to be subjected to batteries of invasive tests and continued observation.

Ruth and Rachael, making their regular visit to take young Glory out to tea, argued with her long and hard that now was the time to get out. They’d met up with Dr Dreck briefly in the reception area when they arrived. Time only for a quick handshake but that was enough to take in an overall and over-riding impression of feverish, obsessive excitement running out of control. He was lamentably short on ethics, medical or otherwise and quite determined to do whatever he had to, to whomever he had to, in order to fulfil ambition which was now all-consuming. Glory, whilst not disputing any of this, insisted she had no choice but to stay on a little longer.

Dreck had, meanwhile, introduced a new drug into Glory’s daily cocktail which was still, unbeknownst to him, regularly finding its way down the toilet. Glory had been unsurprised to read from Miss Merry, who dished out the medication, that the extra white pill was L/24, presumably an evolved version of the drug given to little Ben. Things for Glory weren’t getting any simpler and she was unsure which way to play it. Was it better for her to show the drug being spectacularly successful or disastrously ineffective? She decided that successful in a moderate and perhaps not immediately verifiable way, was the safest path and accordingly over the next couple of weeks allowed herself to progress in small steps.

At one of their sessions she made Dr D’s jacket sleeve smoulder and any irritation he might have felt at the appearance of a black-rimmed hole in the herringbone, was outweighed by excitement that this was something she appeared only able to do after a week or so on 20 mg of L/24. Then there was the discovery that now, not only could she move small wooden bricks, several at a time across the floor but, with no problem, was able to make them fly through the air to land safely one by one a short distance away. Unfortunately the first time this happened, her control apparently wasn’t all it could have been. All six bricks rained painfully down on the head of a note-taking and thereafter slightly dazed Miss Merry, and if there was any moral issue involved, it didn’t trouble Glory unduly.

Chapter Thirty

By the time Glory’s few weeks at the Foundation had turned unbelievably, to just under a year, wheels set in motion were inexorably gathering their own alarming momentum. A team of builders had completed a two storey extension at the rear of the original Newcombe building, facilitating a doubling in size of the in-patient facility and allowing increasing numbers of children to be processed by a growing number of staff.

Glory – more staff member than patient now – had proved her worth, devising and participating in many of the proposed screening procedures. Her own abilities on the psi front, to Dreck’s frustrated disappointment had not progressed nearly as fast as he’d anticipated. However, there was no doubt she was invaluable in pointing out those children most likely to be of interest to the testers. The fact that she muddied the waters, sometimes picking people who turned out not to be special at all, simply meant her scores weren’t 100% perfect. 100% perfect would, she reckoned have been foolish.

The Doctor had devised a levels system by which to grade ability. A number of kids had what might be termed informed intuition, which meant only that they consistently scored higher than average on tests. Then there were those with a very mild but inconsistent ability which seemed to spike and fall at random, totally beyond the control of the child involved. The third and rarest level was the one the Doctor hungered after and it was those children Glory was there to try and help, although putting theory into practice proved no easier for her than it was for him.

Working on the principle of forewarned is forearmed, Glory nevertheless had to ensure that nobody knew who was doing the warning. Reaction from the individuals involved was mixed, some grateful some not. Peter Atkins was the most hostile. He was also the most powerful she’d come across in the whole time she’d been there and she felt that raw strength, even as his coach was drawing up outside the building.

He was twelve, a tall, skinny lad with dark hair, pale thick skin and an arrogant eye. There was, about him, a contained and calculating air of menace, which immediately raised all the hairs on the back of Glory’s elegant neck. When she cautiously made contact, he assimilated her presence and intention with little or no surprise. Neither did he bother to hide the shaft of elation that shot through him at the knowledge that he was exactly what was being sought here. She didn’t like him but quickly did her best to lay out the facts. She’d decided at the beginning, in concert with the Peacocks, the only action she could or would take was a warning, no more no less. Decisions had to be up to the individual, she couldn’t and wouldn’t play God.

Her foray into Peter’s mind was brief and appalling. She hadn’t come across anyone quite like him before and what she saw in there, along with his unpleasantly feral musky scent, lingered long. He was the product of a father with problems of his own and a mother who really didn’t care what anyone’s problems were, as long as she could indulge uninterrupted, her insatiable appetite for anything that money – lots of it – could buy.

Neither parent had a great deal of time for their only son and although the house was magnificent, the schooling private and the toys endless, so too was the stream of nannies then au pairs, most of whom never warmed, even slightly, to their small charge. His repertoire of amusing tricks grew as he did. The mildest involved worms at the bottom of a coffee cup, the direst a dead mouse and details you wouldn’t want to go into. Peter, easily able to read what people were thinking was in no doubt what they thought of him. He also knew where he ranked in importance in his parents’ life.

Just over a year earlier, arriving home from school and letting himself in to make his own tea, he’d heard a noise in his parents’ room when both were supposed to be out. Quietly pushing the door ajar he was riveted by the sight of a complete stranger, tall and thickset, moving around the room. This person was fetchingly clad in pink and frilly baby-doll pyjamas, matching negligee and teeteringly-high, feathered mules. He didn’t need the stranger to turn before recognition hit, and the shock on the lipsticked, rouged and mascarad face of his father must have been mirrored on his own, even as he struggled to rationalise and make sense of what he was seeing.

At that instant, Peter had the opportunity of reading the mix of emotion – shame, embarrassment perhaps a certain amount of relief in his father’s head. Perhaps, at that point, Peter had the chance to see it was this shameful secret and not dislike of his son that lay at the root of the distance all these years. But Peter wasn’t a great one for thoughtful introspection, perhaps no boy would have been under the circumstances. His lip curled, his resentment, fear and incomprehension blended and boiled over as he stared at his father – unloved in suit, tie and bowler, how much more despised, in pink lace.

Creativity Peter didn’t know he had in him, took over with a will all its own and an opened tube of lipstick rose from the dressing table. It slashed deeply and wetly red all over his father’s quivering cheeks and double chin, mixing with tears and stubble as he stumbled backward, covering his be-crimsoned face with both arms. Not a single word was exchanged and the boy stood by the door as the man was marched inexorably into the ensuite bathroom to clean off the make-up.

Nobody ever quite got to the bottom of what really happened. Certainly not Peter, who successfully and completely blotted any assistance he might have given his father from the surface of his mind, putting it somewhere only someone like Glory could have seen it. The assumption was suicide. Mr Atkins had climbed into the bath and slashed both wrists with his own razor. He was dressed, by then, in his own conservatively striped pyjamas and if the police and examining medical officer spotted traces of cosmetics on the jowly dead face, they looked the other way and saw no possible reason for mentioning it and bringing further distress to a hysterical widow and her silent son.

As far as Peter was concerned, his father’s end justified any means and it genuinely didn’t cause him undue angst. However, he was bright enough to know there were clearly defined patterns of behaviour to which it behoved him to conform. He was therefore silently deep in shock when people expected him to be and sobbed and screamed for his father when he read it was the correct time for him to break down and let it all out. And all the while, he was preoccupied with this wondrous and growing power he possessed. Tentatively at first, increasingly bolder as he explored its possibilities and limitations, to his pleasure he found that the former were far greater than the latter.

Being in the top percentile of his class where exam results, if not popularity, were concerned, Peter had naturally been included when his school was approached to participate in the social study at Newcombe and had set off on the coach, unconcerned at the lack of kids clamouring to sit next to him. Never much liked at school, his new-found talents certainly hadn’t earned him any new friends and most of his peers instinctively gave him a wide berth. He’d amused himself on the journey by playing with the coach-driver’s mind, causing his eyes to slide shut and his head to nod until the coach veered dangerously to the middle of the road, allowing the poor chap to jerk himself awake only at the last moment, appalled by his inexplicable and potentially lethal drowsiness. Discretion, decided a severely shaken Glory, as she hastily withdrew from her initial contact with Peter, in this case was almost certainly going to be the better part of valour. Being what she was, through the years she’d been unable to avoid a thorough grounding in the vagaries and often more unsavoury aspects of human nature, but Peter was something else altogether and she’d been startled and repelled by his hungrily avaricious response to her approach. The sensation of his reaching out, seeking via the contact to climb up and into her mind, was not something she’d forget in a hurry. It seemed, that while Peter was on the scene, it would be sensible not to stick her head above the parapet. She therefore made sure that whilst she pointed him out to Miss Merry as being worthy of further attention and a potential high test-scorer, she added no further details and took good care to batten down her hatches.

The surging pleasure of Peter, at finding this wasn’t really some sodding social study as he’d been led to believe, was equalled only by the Doctor’s unmitigated delight at such a promising new subject. Having at this stage, already been through the testing of three or four hundred healthy children and found nobody who set bells ringing, the Doctor had been running short of patience. When Peter turned up he was greeted like manna from heaven and that, as Glory put it, was when the shit really hit the fan.

“And …?” I’d been hanging on every word, only partially aware everyone had finished eating and the table had been cleared.

“Sufficient for now.” Ruth gave me a friendly push in the direction of the stairs, “Go, pack your things so we can get off.”

“Off?”

“To Oxford.”

“I can’t go just like that, I’ve got to call my parents.”

“All dealt with, Rachael called already.”

“She keeps doing that.” I was indignant.

“Saves time.” said Miss Peacock who was whisking the last of the lunch things away. I sensed Ed was torn between gratitude at her doing anything at all in the kitchen and exasperation at the way she was sending things into all the wrong cupboards.

“That,” I said with dignity, “Is beside the point.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Outside the house, parked behind the Morris Marina in which I’d arrived with Ed and Glory, sat a grubby white van that had clearly seen better days – lots of them. Someone had written ‘Clean me for Pete’s sake!’ on one side and ‘Kilroy wouldn’t even dream of it!’ on the other. However, when Ed unlocked and slid back the side door, we climbed into an immaculately roomy interior with two rows of comfortable, high-backed, deep brown leather bench seating, ranged behind the bucket seats of the driver and front-seat passenger. It had that unmistakably delightful brand-new vehicle smell. Ruth was amused at my expression,

“Unobtrusive doesn’t necessarily mean uncomfortable.” She pointed out.

Ed having opened the back door and ushered Hamlet up inside – a somewhat hefty arrival which caused the van to rock alarmingly – took the driving seat. Miss Peacock settled herself next to him, Glory and I sat in the next row with Ruth behind us. We were a somewhat ill-assorted group. Big Ed, concentrating now on re-angling the driving mirror was resplendent in a flannel, blue and white checked shirt, sleeves rolled up over meatily massive, hairless forearms. Drifting back from him was a whiff of lemon-scented after-shave, not dissimilar from his own fresh, tangy, signature-smell. He caught my eye in the mirror, as if it were easier to hold a gaze reflected than a direct one. I hoped he hadn’t caught my swiftly smothered thought that if looks were anything to go by, I’d have expected sweaty over citrus. I looked away hastily as he released the handbrake and moved the van smoothly away.